I was going to wait till I was finished with this build before posting it but since I have a little time now, I thought I would go ahead and start it. I want to apologize for some of the picture quality. Some pics were taken with a phone and others a camera. So it begins…

The bike is a 2004 XL1200C. It was stock when I got it in October of 2009 but I soon added a Samson Caliber 2 into 1 pipe, K&N RK 3929 breather, SE-497 cams and a TC88A ignition. The dyno results in August of 2010 were 80 hp and 79 ft. lbs torque.

This build will feature a Hammer Performance 1250 kit. The parts include new Hammer Performance 1250 cylinders with 10.5:1 pistons with a 15* squish. A set of used XB Buell heads with the “Crush” service performed on them. The heads have 1.900” intake and 1.615” exhaust valves with 5/16” stems and a 15* squish cut into them along with the Ż-13 breather holes drilled and tapped into them. I also sent my SE intake manifold to be port matched to the heads. New exhaust studs were also installed. I will be using IXU24 Denso Iridium spark plugs a new pinion gear and bronze oil pump gear. The cams are Red Shift 585s on my old cores. S&S roller rockers, shafts and Jim’s PowerGlide II hydraulic tappets will be used along with Hammer Performance push rods. A new Buell oil pump PN#26357-02B will be used along with a HSR Mikuni 42 carburetor and S&S IST ignition. I also purchased a new MAP sensor and added a breather oil catch can. The head breathers will not be used. I will continue to use the Samson Caliber 2 into 1 pipe and the K&N RK 3929 breather. The coil and spark plug wires are from Daytona Twin Tec and I swapped out the stock fuel petcock for a Pingle. You can check out my heads and others here.

April 02, 2012

Removed everything I needed to get the cylinders, pistons and cams out of the motor. Time: 4.5 hrs.

April 03, 2012

Removed the oil pump, pinion gear and oil pump drive gear. Cleaned the decks, studs, and cam chest. Ran a tap through every hole and a die over every bolt to remove all the crud and old loctite from the threads. Time: 4.0 hrs

April 04, 2012 Early in the morning.

I assembled a bike lift. Trimmed a pinion gear lock bar. Installed the choke cable on the Mikuni and cleaned the garage. Its amazing how quick you can make a mess compared to how long it takes to clean it up. Time: 4 hrs.

April 04, 2012 Later in the day.

I had a friend grind the clearance on the inboard side of the cam lobes of #2 and #3 so they wouldn’t hit the bearing race of the crankshaft. This can be done by hand on a bench grinder or with a die grinder too. I had access to an OD grinder and a guy that knows how to use one. So I figured why not?

Clearanced the lifter bores using this sanding barrel and a die grinder.

I made four plugs to go in the camshaft bushings so I wouldn’t hit them with the die grinder.

Installed the Buell oil pump after swapping the fittings with the old oil pump.

Performed a variation of the “Ultimate Crankcase Vent” by Deimus. That thread can be found here. I installed a larger 3/8" x 1/8 NPT 90* elbow for the oil bag vent too.

And then buttoned up the cam chest. After that I installed the rear cylinder and unfortunately scored it. That was putting it mildly.

I sent it back to HAMMER DAN to see if he could fix it. Sadly he could not, but was gracious enough to sell me another at his cost. How cool is that!!! HAMMER DAN is the man! Thanks Dan.

I was feeling lucky, so then I installed the front cylinder! Not without incident though. I pushed the piston out of the cylinder and had to reinstall it. What a pita without a compressor. At this point it was time to clean up the garage again. Time: 11.0 hrs

April 5, 2012

Figured out how I was going to install the Mikuni to the breather and the motor. Cleaned the air filter. Disassembled and cleaned the rocker boxes, tossed the umbrella valves and soaked the bolts in Chemtool. Time: 2.5 hrs

April 6, 2012

Lapped the rocker covers and the head mating surface of the rocker boxes. I also ground some clearance for the valve springs in the rocker boxes and in the rocker covers for the rocker arms (just in case). Made some carburetor backing plate stand offs. Ran a die over all the bolts and then oiled the air filter. Time: 6.0 hrs

April 7, 2012

Spot checked the cam timing per the tech article on the Hammer Performance website. The numbers didn’t compute so I moved the cams so they would but then the dots didn’t line up. Time 4 hrs.

April 8, 2012

Removed the cams, pinion gear, and the oil pump drive gear to verify proper installation and to take pics to send to HAMMER DAN. Broke a tooth off the pinion gear upon applying 70 ft. lbs. of torque to the pinion gear nut per the Zipper’s cam installation instructions. Re-tapped the cam chest bolt holes, cleaned the bolts and then the garage.
Time: 6 hrs.

Mounted the crankcase breather catch can and then cleaned and installed the belt guards. Time 2.0 hrs

April 16, 2012

The heads, replacement cylinder/piston and new pinion gear arrived. Touched up the paint on the heads and cylinder and then installed the oil pump drive gear and pinion gear. I didn’t like the slop between the gears and the key on the crankshaft so I shimmed them by cutting a .003” feeler gage into two pieces measuring .062”x .775” and fitting them between both sides the oil pump drive gear and the key on the crankshaft allowing a little to stick out for the pinion gear. I then torqued the pinion gear to 70 ft. lbs. using a tool I made just for this purpose. I had another friend of mine scribe HAMMER PERFORMANCE on it and then sent it to HAMMER DAN as a token of my appreciation for all of his help. The guy is cool! I highly recommend his services. The crankshaft runout was also checked.
Time: 5.0 hrs.

April 17, 2012

Set the rear cylinder and played with the cams. Time: 1.5 hrs.

April 18, 2012

Installed the cams. Spot checked the cams with indicators this time. Installed the crankcase breather again (had to trim the bracket and have it brush cad plated). Time 3.5 hrs.

April 19, 2012

Spot checked the cams one more time. Checked the squish. The rear cylinder averaged .045” and the front .0425”. Ordered some thinner base gaskets from HAMMER PERFORMANCE. Time: 3.0 hrs.

April 20, 2012

Cleaned up the garage. Had to grind a little more clearance on the rocker boxes for the valve springs. Pulled the cylinders and pistons again. Installed O-rings and exhaust gaskets in the heads. Installed rocker arms and shafts into rocker boxes. Pulled the needle out of the Mikuni just to see what was in there and what position the clip was on. Removed the TC88A and reinstalled the wire that was removed from the connector. Gapped the spark plugs. Time: 5.0 hrs.

April 21, 2012

Didn't touch the bike today

April 22, 2012

Cleaned on the bike for 8 hrs. today. The IST and thinner base gaskets should be here tomorrow.